


if only I would wait

by hitlikehammers



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Apple Pie, Longing, M/M, Married In All The Ways That Count, Marvel Universe Big Bang, Marvel Universe Big Bang 2020, Mud Pie, Pie is an Important Symbol, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-World War II Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers Wears Guilt Like A Three Piece Suit, Supersoldiers in Love, Traditions, peach pie, pecan pie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:08:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28179624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hitlikehammers/pseuds/hitlikehammers
Summary: Pie, Bucky believes, exists for celebrating Steve Rogers.Steve believes, if that’s the case, then everythingelsein the world exists to celebrate Bucky Barnes.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 73
Kudos: 191
Collections: Marvel Big Bang 2020





	if only I would wait

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Taste_is_Sweet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taste_is_Sweet/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Empty Scene](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28076142) by [Taste_is_Sweet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taste_is_Sweet/pseuds/Taste_is_Sweet). 



> When my dearest [weepingnaid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/weepingnaiad) messaged to tell me that a beautiful piece of art created for a fic in this year's [Marvel Big Bang]() was unexpectedly left without a story, and asked if I thought I could manage a ficlet for it, I was happy to at least _try_. When I found out the lovely [Taste_is_Sweet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taste_is_Sweet/pseuds/Taste_is_Sweet) was the artist, I knew that I'd do my utmost to create _something_ , even if long COVID kind of robbed me of not just my energy and focus, but also my mind, and my intellect, and worse of all: my _words_. 'Brain fog' is a really horribly glib phrase for it, tbh.
> 
> (Which I say not for drama, or to whinge, but because I make it a point to underscore just how serious this virus is, and to be clear about what it does, how it ravages you and changes your life even _if_ you survive, so that maybe more people will take it seriously.)
> 
> So: here is my kind-of twist on a RBB, for a BB, because I don't think I met the story the art was originally created for like...at all. And I'm not sure the story I did write is even up to par—COVID _also_ makes it really hard to judge value/worth, and I was never very skilled at that to begin with—but I really, _really_ hope it does a little justice to the beautiful, evocative art it was made in response to. Thanks for sharing something really emotive and full of artistic skill, Taste!
> 
> Title credit [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVC5QSlgXuU&ab_channel=MichaelHoleva).

He can feel the flush rising in his cheeks, his color up along with his pulse, tripping quick enough that Steve knows it’s not just the way Bucky’s rushing them to god-knows-where that’s to blame for it.

No: the way Bucky’s dragging him by the hand, fingers wrapped whole-around Steve’s wrist. That has more to do with it than anything.

Which has been the case, honestly, for a while now. Provided that Steve _is_ honest about it, and not trying to fool himself into thinking it’s whatever part of his body’s rebelling on a given day that makes his heart stumble and race to catch up when Bucky swears under his breath, deeper now the cracky-squeak’s gone out of it; or if he’s gone a little breathless when Bucky’s profile gets caught in the afternoon sun, his jaw sharpening a little more every day.

Maybe it’s got a little to do with the suspense of it all, though, to be fair: Bucky always comes by on Steve’s birthday, even the ones he’s spent in bed—one year Steve’s ma gave him enough change for them to get shaved ice, even. 

But they’re older, now, and they went to Coney Island last year, cobbled together enough for admission but not much else, and it’s for the best because Steve lost his breakfast after riding the Cyclone and it would’ve been worse had he eaten a lunch to lose, too. Steve doesn’t have any cash to spare this year, though, and he’d just been figuring they’d camp out on the fire escape, and maybe Bucky’d take off his shirt for the heat, and Steve would feel guilty for looking but grateful for the view, and his chest would hurt for the strain on his nerves as much as for the shame of sneaking a peek at his best friend in the world like he was a piece of meat but hot _damn_ , is the time Bucky’s started spending down at Goldie’s paying off.

But Bucky’s on a tear, now, and he’s bringing Steve along in his wake like always, and Steve’ll follow, like always, because it’s _Bucky_ —though any other day or time he’d kick up a fuss over it. 

Today, though: Today, Bucky’s smiling and his eyes are glinting and he’s close-on to vibrating with whatever’s propelling him further and further toward the shops they really can’t afford and Steve’s curious, sure.

But Bucky’s also _beautiful_ , so.

Which explains why Steve doesn’t notice they’re slowing until the soles of his shoes are skidding, and Bucky’s close to bouncing on the tips of his toes, and they’re staring into the slick ice cream joint with the cake display that reflects in the glass front they’re looking into, making Bucky’s reflection in it look like rainbows and diamonds and all manner of perfect, priceless things.

The people inside look like they’re wearing clothes that’d pay for three months’ rent on their own, easy.

“Come _on_ ,” Bucky pulls Steve’s hand, his grip moving down with momentum but it works to link their fingers for a spare second on the way through the door and oh.

Oh, Steve’s heart dances a goddamn tango for it, pathetic sap.

And Steve’s a bit lost in that, frankly, by the time he realizes that this time, they really _have_ stopped: inside an establishment finer than Steve’s seen so close-up save in a film or two, stood in front of the kind of booth that’s not got any holes or tears or fraying ends or stains, but that shines up nice. Looks almost comfortable.

“S’rude to stare.”

Steve doesn’t like the fact that he jumps at the voice hissed theatrically at his ear, and he scowls when Bucky pulls back and snorts at Steve’s reaction.

But Bucky’s mouth was just near his skin at the ear, and his breath was warm, and—

Fuck.

“It’s a table.” Steve blinks owlishly, he can feel it, even as he processes his very brilliant commentary of the obvious, because that warmth was potent, see, and he’s still feeling it in his bones, in the line of his spine, just a little.

 _Fuck_.

“Which is why you should sit at it,” Bucky nudges him after, he assumes, he’s been quiet too long; “not gawk at it.”

Steve snorts, this time.

“We gotta _buy_ somethin’ to be allowed to sit, Buck.” Steve had been wrong: the clothes on these people.

They’d pay at least half-a-year’s rent, some of them. 

Others: a shoe woulda been the three months.

“Which is why _you’re_ gonna sit,” and Steve would bristle at the way Bucky steers him; Steve would feel shame or anger at the fact that he moves along—

“And _I’m_ gonna buy something, genius.”

Steve would feel those things, if he wasn’t feeling hands on him like he’s not wearing clothes between, like it’s skin to skin and brand-burning, and oh.

Steve falls heavy, though the shined-nice cushion of the booth is kind for it; he falls when the backs of his knees hit the seat.

It’s too late, really, when Steve comes to his senses enough to think on why Bucky went up to order alone—if Steve saw the prices, he know he’d throw a fit; but by the time he’s ready to stalk to the counter Bucky’s balancing a single plate between both hands, like he’s holding something precious, and when he glances up and grins at Steve before sitting across, Steve damn well wishes those hands could hold _him_ like that some day.

Steve doesn’t clock that there’s only one fork, either, until Bucky’s pushing the absolutely sinful looking piece of pie his way.

“Happy birthday, Stevie.”

And Steve?

Steve just blinks some more, but this time it’s because his heart’s in his throat and Bucky’s gaze is so _soft_ and Steve doesn’t quite understand what’s happening, what they’re doing here, why Bucky’s sliding a dessert his way that could keep him and his ma both fed for at least a week for the price tag it had to boast and Steve feels a little cold, at that. A little numb.

Bucky, though. Bucky knows him too well, and sees it all before Steve can say a word.

“You know my Great Aunt Mill’s a spinster,” Bucky says fondly, and Steve does know Mildred Barnes at least a little, and he’s not sure she’d appreciate being outright called as much; “and I’m her favorite,” which is true; “so maybe she slipped me a little pocket money when she visited last month.”

Steve opens his mouth to protest, to chide, to… _something_ , but Bucky’s face is shining somehow without a full-on smile to his lips, just the slightest quirk, like his whole world is tied up in the food sat between them, even if Bucky looks like he doesn’t mean to even take a bite himself.

“Doubt she meant for you to be wasting it like this,” Steve finally grits out, and Bucky’s shine dims just a smidge, and Steve could deck himself for it; but it comes back sly, soon enough, and Steve can live with that.

“Ain’t wasting it,” Bucky scoffs, though Steve thinks there are depths in it that he doesn’t recognize and maybe doesn’t have the time to find just now, when people would be around to see. Or maybe that’s wishful thinking.

“And don’t think I didn’t do my homework, neither, this place actually _does_ have the best pie in town, ain’t just for show, so,” and he reaches out, grabs the fork and pokes it straight into the center of the slice, stuck-straight-up. 

“Eat up, punk.”

———————————————————

It becomes a tradition. 

Steve tries to pay it back, tries to take Bucky somewhere every March—usually not as fancy, but nice enough—but Bucky, despite common opinion, is the more stubborn of the two of them, and he’ll hear none of it. This is a thing he does for Steve, he says, to celebrate him. Not something Steve owes him in return.

He never lets Steve share his pie, either, though he does order something to drink when Steve pushes hard enough that it’s awkward just eating on his own with Bucky watching—which Bucky doesn’t buy for a second—or that it makes him feel sad when Bucky has nothing at Steve’s expense—which Bucky gets huffy over, full of indignation—or, the one thing that works in the end: Steve wants to _share_ his birthday with his best guy. 

Even if his best guy’s sipping a _soda_ , while Steve’s stuffing his face.

When Steve’s ma dies, he doesn’t want to go, holes up in their apartment and tries to find the scent of her perfume on dust motes even though she rarely wore it, and if it was ever lingering it’d already be long gone. Bucky brings a slice wrapped carefully in a milk crate and damn-close to spoon feeds it to him, and it probably says more than either of them are ready to admit just yet—but then again, maybe says exactly what they’ve been screaming at each other for years—that Steve lets him. And eats every bite.

He figures out Steve’s favorite flavor _of_ pie, too, even before Steve himself. Steve generally just had something of a sweet tooth, and sugar was in short supply, so he wasn’t much picky. But by the time they’re moved in together, that first July, Bucky slides him a slice of bright, juicy peach pie and apologizes, because they don’t have his favorite, but Bucky thought second best would suffice in a pinch.

It’s not until the next year that Steve learns—from Bucky, but for himself—that he loves pecan best.

It’s not until they get home that night, though, that Steve proves—to Bucky, but for them both—what he loves best, full stop, when he pins Bucky to the door and kisses him, and doesn’t even get a chance to second guess himself because Bucky’s lips part and Steve takes what’s given and if he’s on his knees with his mouth on Bucky and it’s sweeter than any confection Steve’s ever tried, well.

Bucky could have saved them a lot of money if that had been his goal. But it wasn’t.

Because _celebrating_ Steve, that was Bucky’s idea. And when Steve had tried to turn it back on him in one of his many failed attempts to return the gesture— _I wanna celebrate you, jerk_—he’d stubbornly held to the idea that pie was only for celebrating Steves, not other people. 

So Steve, in March of ‘42, when they’ve weathered winters and close shaves and cold beds they made warm for themselves, when Bucky always finds a way to save his ass from drowning, when Bucky goes dancing and sometimes Steve plays the part of a curmudgeonly-but-gentlemanly double date; and sometimes Steve puts his enviable bullheadedness toward making it look like he’s _not_ staring at the man he’d damn well kill and die for while he lets loose in a way that looks obscene, and angelic, and breathtaking but Steve’s seen better on that face, has _put_ better on that face; and sometimes Steve stays behind, but Bucky—Bucky still comes home to _Steve_ at the end of the day, and so.

So: in March of ‘42, after Steve’s hands have trembled around the damn thing for weeks and weeks now as he’s thought himself silly, or punchdrunk, or foolish, or naive, or just plain ol’ _dumb_ about it all: after he’s made himself sick for it, stayed up all night with it, turned himself cross for the way it eats him alive, his hands are finally steady when he takes the money he made on the side with a Tijuana Bible he’d sketched for, buys the ingredients for a cake—because _cake_ , well, that’s for celebrating Buckys, and Jameses, and the loves-of-Steve-Rogers-Lifes—and when Steve sticks his father’s wedding band in the center as he slides it to Bucky across their rickety kitchen table, stuck straight-up and scuffed with age and wear but glinting brighter, somehow, than that silver fork in that fancy diner so many years ago, Bucky’s the one staring, gaping, blinking. And there is a second: there is a _moment_ where Steve slips back into the scared, the dumb, the _idiot, you idiot_ voice in his head but then Bucky’s standing and he’s grabbing Steve by the hand, fingers tight on his wrist, and it’s as it’s always been, really.

Because Bucky’s sweet when he kisses Steve, hard and deep and long; and sweeter still, when he says, _you’re serious_ , full of trembling hope, and Steve says, _more’n I’ve ever been about anything_.

Sweetest, though, when he laughs against Steve’s mouth and breathes out wonder: _fuck, well, then yeah, yes, of course._

Of _course_.

———————————————————

Once Bucky ships out—they miss Steve’s 25th, if only by a hair, and Steve’s not sure Bucky forgives himself for it, never mind they’re in a goddamn _war_ —but after he ships out, timing is on their side for absolutely nothing.

Save for this.

Steve doesn’t even realize it’s July already; they’re probably marking it somehow back at camp, but they’re on their way back from an op that ran them ragged, that skimmed too close to losing too damn many times. Steve’s chest is still tight with it, jaw still aching for how he’d had to clench it against the fear, the anguish caught up in _what if_ every moment pushed to a new decibel, an assault on a frequency that Steve doesn’t know how he survived, and isn’t sure he’ll stand to feel again.

Except that he’ll have to. Fuck, _fuck_ : but he’ll have to.

So he’s distracted, when Bucky comes up to him; he’s weak for the way Bucky’s skin feels on Steve’s skin—dry, callused, but warm. Real. 

Alive.

His fingertips curl around Steve’s wrist, and they’re deliberate in how they press to the pulse there, because Bucky needs, too—and Steve doesn’t think twice but to follow Bucky into the trees, further and further from their little huddle of bivouacs 

It takes Steve a second—more seconds than it maybe would have if his nerves weren’t so frayed, if it weren’t so dark and Bucky weren’t so warm and Steve wasn’t so drunk on the presence of him against the constant threat of loss—but then he sees it: a little mound of wet soil, shaped in a triangle, with a dollop of crushed leaves and a stick in the top, a lucky find or a careful choice for its little spray of wood fibers at the end, like a flame.

Steve’s throat starts to close on him; his eyes start to burn something fierce. 

“‘M sorry it’s not,” Bucky’s voice is so quiet, and he’s holding to Steve’s hand so goddamn _tight_ ; “well.”

And Steve’s ready in an instant, like they both knew the motion before it could start and maybe they did, maybe they do: but when Bucky turns his face into the crook of Steve’s neck and burrows there, just a little, Steve’s leaning his cheek down into the heat of him, and pulling him close enough that his ribs would open to draw him in close and keep him, if it were possible.

In every way it _is_ possible, for meaning: they already have. Long ago.

“Just,” and Bucky’s breath shudders with his whole body; “sorry.”

And Steve makes a sound that maybe would have been a laugh in another life; he doesn’t get a say in it, in the fact that it happens or comes at all from his chest. It’s broken and trembling and he’s squeezing Bucky to him so fucking _hard_ and god.

It’s his birthday, and at the end of the goddamn world, Bucky’s celebrating him.

Bucky made him in a slice of pie.

“Don’t be sorry,” Steve chokes, and it’s still not something he gets a say in: but he hasn’t cried once in this fucking war. Not _once_.

But in the face of a mud pie in the dark, Steve fucking _breaks_.

“Don’t you _ever_ be sorry.”

And it’s all salt and need when Steve kisses him, hard enough to bruise; when Bucky kisses back, draws blood with the feeling.

It’s salt, and need.

And it’s everything.

___

It’s the dead of winter. It’s no one’s fucking birthday.

So it takes Steve by surprise, when Bucky leads him to the trees again: it’s not something they haven’t done, or don’t do often enough, but there’s a way that Bucky grabs his hand that’s different. That speaks to something else.

And this time there’s no stick candle or mud puddle: it’s a log that’s dead twenty times over, only held in one piece by the frost. It’s a log, and an untouched D Ration lying on it, plain and as revolting as it ever was, except—

“Again,” Bucky says softly, looks chagrined: his whole face a grimace at best: “sorry.”

But Steve barely hears it, barely sees it, because the chocolate’s familiar, and simple, and pointless and hateful but in the middle of it; in the middle of it there’s an equally-familiar something that’s also simple, save for how it’s profound. Never pointless, not once in the history of the whole world. 

And the only thing hateful about it is what it might mean, the fact that the ring Steve gave Bucky just years ago, but a lifetime from here and now: the only possible thing that could ever be _hateful_ about that ring is that it’s not strung where it belongs, with Bucky’s tags against his heart, and it feels like it’s being given to Steve as an offering.

Save that it can only really be the exact opposite.

“This,” Steve swallows, or else he tries, and can’t. “Is this,” his voice is thin, and almost not even his own as he trips, as he fumbles and turns to Bucky, his eyes so wide it _hurts_ : 

“Are you?”

Steve can’t even put it into words. _Are you giving it back, are you walking away, are you done, are we done, did I ruin it, did I—_

But Bucky's there, before he can spiral any further: palms cradling Steve’s face with the dearest sort of gentleness, like he’s precious.

Steve closes his eyes and sinks into the touch; breathes and breathes and breathes.

“I want you to keep it safe,” Bucky whispers, and presses lips to the corner of Steve’s mouth: “when we’re, when I’m,” and Bucky’s breath catches, Steve feels it close and can’t open his eyes; _can’t_ , not for what Bucky’s trying to say. Not when the mission before them is so dire, is so crucial, is so fucking _dangerous_ but then so is everything, what’s jumping a train against everything they’ve already faced but Steve can’t hear it, can’t see it, _can’t_ —

“In case—”

“ _Don’t_ ,” Steve gasps, hisses; “please.”

“Steve,” Bucky tries to coax, but it’s futile; Steve knows it’s absurd, maybe even childish, but he screws his eyes shut tighter against the words like maybe he can will them away somehow in the dark. 

“When I come back, if you wanna give it to me—”

And that: that, apparently, is all Steve needed to hear to accept reality before his eyes. Because those words, _those_ words implied something like doubt. Like a question.

Fucking _if_ —never.

“Buck,” Steve forces the words out, a low glass-cut rumble; bleeding. “You can give it me to look after, but it’s always gonna be yours.”

Bucky pulls back only far enough to fix Steve with the full force of his gaze: all feeling, but so much _ache_.

“Steve, it’s _war_ —”

“If you don’t come back for it,” Steve grits out, the words hanging like him, by less than a goddamn thread: 

“If you don’t come back for it, there’s not gonna be anything in me left for giving it. anyway. Not ever again.”

“Don’t say that,” Bucky begs; barely breathes: “don’t fucking _say_ that—”

“Don’t give it back.” Steve says, force in the words now to match the force of his hands when they reach to cling to Bucky in kind.

“Don’t,” he exhales; deflating, and devastated with it—desperate now: “don’t give it back.”

“Not giving it back,” Bucky soothes, firm and sweet and Steve wants to wish the world away and live inside the sound of his voice. “Never that, sweetheart. Just need to make sure it, that it’s...”

Bucky trails for a second, and Steve focuses on the way his throat works, the way his frame shivers before he looks up: steel in his eyes. Conviction that steals Steve’s breath.

“It’s a promise, ain’t it? Always has been.” He searches for something in Steve’s gaze and Steve does his damnedest to give _everything_ back, so he’ll find what he needs but something’s off, something’s wrong and Bucky frowns, and something small but essential in Steve shrivels for it:

“To me, at least.”

“It’s a promise,” Steve is quick to reassure, to swear to him that it’s that, of course it’s that.

“But it’s also,” Steve licks his lips; “it’s also for now. For now and for always. And—”

“I don’t want to die with it,” Bucky cuts him off in the hush, the choked-out part of an exhale: “not until you let me give you one, too.” He strokes Steve’s fingers, where it could fit; presses an open hand to the center of Steve’s chest and measures his riotous pulse there, for where it would live. 

“For keeps.”

And Steve feels lead in his veins, like there’s no air in the world anymore: Bucky’d wanted to get him a ring in New York, before he left, but Steve had told him it’d keep, they were in love and it’d see them through the other side of the war; Bucky’d wanted to get him a ring in London, in Salzburg, in Paris, in a shitty barn they’d hidden in one night where he was ready to use a spare part from a tractor to do the job.

Steve shut him up with his lips, all over, every time. He’s not sure why. Maybe he needed to think of after, maybe he needed to hold on to it. He doesn’t fucking know.

“I was stupid.”

Bucky grins, and it’s twisted and sour and Steve wants to sob.

“No shit, punk.”

“I love you.” That’s the only truth worth holding, or living by, and if Steve can’t sob he can damn well speak that soul-deep tenet of his being into the world. 

“I know it,” Bucky’s grin turns softer for it, too. “Know I love you harder.”

“Not possible,” Steve breathes, and his voice is wet no matter what he wants, no matter how hard he tries: “S’not _possible_ , Buck, I—”

“Keep it,” Bucky leans into him, his chest to Steve’s and his eyes deep: pleading. “Just for now, okay?”

Steve can’t open his mouth, can’t speak, throat too tight and heart pounding too hard.

“For me.”

And that’s the end of it, whether Steve likes it or not. Because for Bucky, well.

Anything. _Anything_.

———————————————————

When Bucky falls, because Steve couldn’t catch him, the ring weighs traitorous around his neck, an albatross.

It sinks with him into the Atlantic, and there might be a plane, and bombs, and gravity and ice but Steve thinks the single circlet on the chain at his chest is what drags him to the depth until it’s over.

The last failure he’ll ever know.

———————————————————

It’s not the last. Of course it isn’t.

Steve spends the better part of a year fingering it in the dark every night before bed. 

Steve spends the better part of another with his eyes open on the ceiling most nights, letting the weight of it on his chest crush him; break his ribs in slow motion.

Steve spends a single moment staring into eyes he loves that don’t know him anymore, and the metal gives way, and he thinks: _drag me down for real this time. Do it fucking right._

When he wakes and his tags were taken off in the hospital, he feels lost without their shape, without the suffocating reminder, and he sobs so hard he tears one of the knife wounds open again, and still feels like the universe is laughing at him when the blood stains the sheets.

But when the time comes, he can’t bring himself to put it back on. It’s not his.

It might not be wanted anymore—not even close—but he hadn’t been lying. Maybe he just hadn’t quite let it sink in before.

There’s nothing left in him for giving it to anyone else. Not ever again.

———————————————————

It’s more than a year, after. Sam had taken up the charge while Steve licked his wounds after Sokovia, but Steve’s back to following the breadcrumbs that he can dredge up as to where the man he loves is. There have been more deadends than Steve can count, and plenty of times when the trail's gone cold and Steve has despaired, even as he knew he deserved no better, nothing more.

But lately: lately, it’s almost seemed deliberate. It’s almost like they’re playing a game.

It’s possible that it’s wishful thinking. 

He’d been out for food, though, in the middle of nowhere, Indiana, when he comes back to a motel room that’s been turned over. Obviously so.

He can assess that the threat’s long gone in a matter of seconds, and he doesn’t pause before he looks for what’s missing. His StarkPad is gone, but it’s encrypted, and he’ll wipe it remotely: fine. His clothes are strewn all over, like there’d been a goal, an endgame to the raid.

 _No_.

Steve jumps, and grabs his go bag, unzips the hidden compartment where he figures intel, a jump drive, a weapon is meant to go but that’s not what he keeps there. 

Kept there.

It’s gone.

The chain. The tags, the—

His albatross. His shame and his heart and his, his—

Steve’s numb. He’s freezing cold down his limbs and through his veins in a way that ice had never managed. He can’t focus, or breathe, or move. He’s adrift. He thought he knew loss. It wasn’t even _his_ anymore, it—

He hyperventilates himself into unconsciousness, and doesn’t even fucking deserve that.

———————————————————

There are still crumbs, though. Hints and little tidbits that Steve recognizes because he’s looking, because he’s hurting, because he’s desperate and he also knows the man who’s leaving them. Knows the tiny tells that maybe even Bucky doesn’t know—whoever Bucky is now, however much of him is the same or different, lost or found: always, _always_ the whole of Steve’s heart.

There are still crumbs, and Steve’s broken in new ways but he’s used to being broken as a rule, by now. And the only thing he really has left is following, picking up the threads and hoping like hell.

But he’s tired. It’s been quiet for nearly a week, now, and that’s almost always the sign that the trail’s dried up: and Steve feels it, visceral where the heartbreak cracks all over again like a blade drawn down his sternum, but rusty. Unforgiving and leaving scars every time.

The diner he ends up in is pure utility, just off the highway in the earliest hours of the morning, deepest hours of the night. He needs calories in order to be able to see straight as he drags himself back—not home, Steve doesn’t think he’s known what that word means, not wholly, since before the ice; but back to base. Back to ground. Something.

He’s reaching for his wallet as soon as he hears the footsteps of the waitress, breathing out slow so as to steel himself: the end of this trail doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the line. It doesn’t.

It _can’t_.

He starts thumbing bills, counting what he figures will cover his food and a sizable tip, but then the footsteps are retreating, not a word said. Steve looks up: the woman who’d served him is leaning against the counter, chewing the end of a pencil as she works on a newspaper crossword. She’s nowhere near him: must have to move fast in her line of work, he guesses.

He sets his billfold on the table, and figures he’ll wait until she takes a break on her own—and then he sees it.

She’d cleared his plates a while ago, and he hadn’t ordered anything more. 

Nevertheless: there’s a plate in front of him. With the one thing he’s avoided like the goddamn plague since he woke up, that makes him sick to his stomach every time he sees it, has him heaving dry if he so much as catches the scent.

Pie.

It’s a goddamn piece of pie.

And Steve’s heart’s in his throat unbidden, save that that’s the only possible reaction it could have in the face of this, of _this_ : raucous and riotous and full of confusion and wonder and blind hope because waitresses can’t move that quick, can they? Or that quiet and—

And then Steve stills. Then, Steve blinks.

The lights are glaring and wan, casting everything in yellow, but when they catch the metal? The metal perched just next to the horrible, beautiful, terrible, _impossible_ fucking slice of pie?

That metal reflects rainbows. And diamonds. And all manner of perfect, priceless things.

And Steve doesn’t even think of stopping the tears that build and spill from his lashes when he hears from a memory, from the deepest parts of his heart:

_When I come back, if you wanna give it to me—_

It’s a promise. It always was. For now.

For always.

Steve can’t breathe. Steve can’t think. Steve’s world is ending as much as it’s starting again.

He doesn’t know if there are eyes on him, or if they’re long gone, or a little bit of both—it doesn’t matter.

It’s a promise. It’s warm.

And Steve slides the plates closer, and takes a bite, and it’s apple, which is fine. Which is all that’s on the menu. Which is a miracle and a half.

Steve eats the whole damn thing, and for the first time in decades: he _hopes_.

**Author's Note:**

> [Twitter.](https://twitter.com/hitlikehammers)


End file.
